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The first trucks in a Russian aid convoy crossed into eastern Ukraine on Friday without Kiev's approval, after more than a week's delay amid suspicions the mission was being used as a cover for an invasion by Moscow.

KIEV, Ukraine — Russia has sent scores of trucks carrying humanitarian aid through a rebel-controlled border crossing into war-torn eastern Ukraine in a move Kiev authorities have called “a direct invasion.”

“We call that a direct invasion. Under the cynical cover of the Red Cross these are military vehicles with cover documents,” the chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, told reporters on Friday.

The unilateral Russian sweep across the border drew strong condemnation from the European Union, the United States and NATO and sharply raised the stakes in eastern Ukraine, for any attack on the convoy could draw the Russian military directly into the conflict between the Ukrainian government and the separatist rebels.

In addition, NATO said Friday that it had seen "a major escalation in Russian military involvement in Eastern Ukraine since mid-August, including the use of Russian forces." It said that Russian artillery units had fired on Ukrainian troops from within Ukraine, as well as across the border. And it said Russia was arming the separatists, which Ukraine has long contended and Russia has always denied.

But the entry of the convoy into Ukrainian territory on Friday was one of Russia's most brazen moves yet. Moscow made the decision to move the convoy after the trucks sat idle in a customs inspection zone at the Russian-Ukrainian border for more than a week while awaiting permission from Kiev to enter the country.

Ukrainian officials feared that the convoy, comprised of some 270 Kamaz military trucks covered in white tarpaulin, was a Trojan horse sent by Moscow to transport arms and reinforcements to Kremlin-backed rebels who have fought pitched battles against government forces for more than four months.

There was no dispute that at least some of the trucks carried humanitarian aid. Ukrainian border guards and customs officers cleared 34 of the trucks on Thursday, the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service said Friday.

“The total weight of the cargo is over 260,000 kilos [287 tons]. It’s composed of cereals, salt and water,” the border service reported. Two of the 34 trucks were carrying medication, it said.

But Russia on Friday grew tired of waiting for the final green light to move the trucks into Ukraine, with the foreign ministry saying in a strongly worded statement that it was weary of “intolerable” delays and an increasing amount of “new and artificial demands and pretexts, which is turning into a mockery.”

So it “decided to act,” sending in the trucks without permission from Ukraine or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which had been tasked with inspecting and accompanying the convoy to the besieged city of Luhansk.

A New York Times journalist on the scene, Andrew Roth, said the entire convoy had made its way into Ukraine shortly after 3 p.m. local time on Friday. An Associated Press reporter reported seeing the first trucks in a massive Russian aid convoy entering the war-torn city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine a few hours later.

The convoy crossed the border en route to the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk. The separatist stronghold has been without power, telecommunications and running water for 20 days, after shells pounded the city and destroyed much of its infrastructure.

Food is also scarce in the city, as stores sell off the last of their goods. Some of the several hundreds of thousands of residents who managed to flee Luhansk, a city with a pre-war population of about 450,000, have given harrowing accounts of life amid constant fighting.

Residents wait for hours in line each day to fill their buckets at one of the few water trucks. Some, however, opt to fill their pails in local streams. Many spend a considerable amount of time in dank basements to protect themselves from exploding projectiles.

The ICRC said in a statement on Twitter that it is not escorting the convoy due to security concerns and, specifically, reports of “heavy shelling overnight.”

“The Russian Aid Convoy is moving into Ukraine, but we are not escorting it due to the volatile security situation,” said the ICRC. “We’ve not received sufficient security guarantees from the fighting parties.”

Shortly after entering Ukraine at the border town of Izvaryne, the convoy turned off the main road to Luhansk and cut north onto a country road and parked in the village of Uralo-Kavkaz, the AP reported. That route also leads to Luhansk, potentially bypassing areas controlled by Ukrainian troops.

The New York Times reporter also following the convoy reported it had turned back at Krasnodon, a city southeast of Luhansk.

Trucks turned back in Krasnodon headed along country roads close to border thru Ural-Kavkaz. Cars with rebels accompanying. Still to lugansk

With the trucks trundling toward Luhansk, and Ukraine calling the move an “invasion,” many fear provocations against the convoy, which could potentially spark an all-out war between Russia and Ukraine.

“We are warning against any attempts to sabotage this purely humanitarian mission, which was prepared a long time ago, in an atmosphere of full transparency and in cooperation with the Ukrainian side and the ICRC,” the Russian foreign ministry said.

Kiev, meanwhile, said that “all responsibility” rests with the Russian side. “Not with the terrorists, but specifically the Russian side, because this is their decision," Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry also accused the "terrorists" — its term for the pro-Russian separatists — of "shelling the convoy’s possible route with mortars." That could not be confirmed, but the belief in Kiev is that rebels could blame Ukrainian troops for any attack on the convoy in order to provoke a Russian military response.

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